I have been using the 2.4.19-gentoo-r9 kernel for a while now with stunning results. No instability of any kind. My question...

I need to run a high performance pre-emptable kernel on a redhat 7.2 installed system. Does anyone see a reason why the gentoo kernel will not work? I assume the package can be downloaded already patched and ready to extract, configure and compile?

I believe you assume wrong, at least about the download method. The gentoo-sources ebuild downloads a vanilla base kernel, and then downloads a patch set, and then applies the patches (or some subset of them that you have chosen). There is no actual "gentoo-sources" tarball. So you would probably be best off emerging gentoo-sources on a Gentoo machine, and then packaging the patched source tree yourself._________________For every higher wall, there is a taller ladder